All to busy with PCG's.

John Charlton.
Derby.

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> From: P S Buttar <[log in to unmask]>
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Data conversion/transfer: a proposal
> Date: 31 May 1998 10:18
> 
> On Friday, I attended a meeting of several GPs, and several software 
> suppliers. Most speakers talked about data conversion, and what their 
> systems/teams could offer.
> 
> Data conversion has long been one of the barriers that prevent GPs from 
> moving more freely from one system to another. An additional problem is 
> that when patients leave a practice, all the time spent in computerising 
> their records is effectively lost, with everything being printed out onto

> paper and re-entered at the new surgeryy. There has been discussion -
here 
> and elsewhere - about an agreed standard format for the electronic
transfer 
> of such data, but so far there seems to have been little progress.
> 
> None of us would buy a word processor that only wrote and read its own 
> proprietary format, and produced documents that were unintelligible to
all 
> other word processors. Rather than sitting down and discussing a standard

> document format (which may or may not have been a good thing), software 
> suppliers have ensured that their own products can read from, and write
to, 
> the formats used by all their competitors.
> 
> It has long been a requirement for GP software to export all or some - at

> the user's control - of any patient's clinical information to a DOS
format. 
> I propose that all software suppliers should place the data structure of 
> their DOS format in the public domain, so that each supplier can then 
> develop the filters required for direct import/export of such material. 
> This may prove to be a temporary measure, until the NHS can agree a 
> standard format for exchange of patient information, but it seems to me 
> that, at a stroke, this would eliminate many of the problems associated 
> with data conversion and transfer.
> 
> As a first step, I wish to announce that the DOS export format of my own 
> system is now public domain. I will place it on my website as soon as the

> site is up, and in the meantime I am happy to forward details to anyone
who 
> requests them. I call on all other software suppliers to do the same.
> 
> Prit
> 
> P S BUTTAR
> [log in to unmask]
> 


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